On Coetzee And The Edge Of The Novels

J.M.Coetzee, a world famous writer nowadays, was born in February in 1940 in South African and become a descendent of Dutch colonist. In 2003, he was awarded Novel Prize in Literature. He lived in a time when the system of racial separation in South Africa is formed and become Rampant. Because of colonial history and apartheid system in South Africa, he fell into a plight of getting cultural identity acknowledged from his early life, and was bothered by a sense of mental anguish of otherness resulting from his marginal identity. After graduation from his college, he left South Africa with his rebellious spirit and led a wandering life in Europe to seek for his literary dreams. Such wandering life broadened his horizon but also deepened his otherness in psychology. Coetzee's special experience exerts some influence on his writing. He concerns about the difficulties that common people face. The characters portrayed in his writing are some ordinary people. He touches and deconstructs the center from the edge. The former embodies author's care to human and humanity; while the latter represents his dependent thinking and the spirit of speaking out his mind freely which is praiseworthy. Coetzee's each work generally carries a number of literary and cultural issues and full of charm for people to read.This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one is introduction which in composed of three sections. Section one discussed the process of putting forward this research issue as well as its significance. The author of this thesis got to know J.M .Coetzee from his autobiography and then attracted by his works. Through reading, he found that marginal issue is an important feature of Coetzee's cultural identity and also embodied in the characters portrayed in his works. Marginality is a strategy in Coetzee's writing. Hence, the author of this thesis conducts research for Coetzee and the marginality created by him. From the study on Coetzee both at home and abroad, there seems to be little research on his marginal issue. Thus, this tentative study of Coetzee's marginal issue is without insignificant. Section two is a literature review of domestic and foreign study on Coetzee. Domestic study and articles about this study is less than that in western. Therefore, it is much necessary to grasp Coetzee's work from an overall perspective and conduct a study on his marginality.Section three introduces the purpose, content and methods of this study. The author of this thesis puts Coetzee and his works in a wide cultural context to makeanalysis. He combines theory and practice together in the hope of exploring Coetzee's works from the perspective of marginality. Chapter two analyzes the embodiment of Coetzee's cultural identity and the reason of its formation from the point of view of origin, language, beliefs, history. Owing to the resentment to Arab-Israeli colonial crime and nationalism in Africa, Coetzee don't acknowledge their culture. Although he is English-speaking and renowned in the world for his English writing, yet he is not an English man. Hence, he goes to England and search for his root, only to feel a sense of loneliness as an outsider. He can not speak indigenous languages in South Africa and the colonial rule in South Africa conducted by his ancestors laid a solid barrier between him and the black people. He cannot touch the core of South-African culture. Hence, Coetzee is in the margin in both sides and his marginal cultural identity has some impact on his writing.Chapter three is a detailed analysis of marginality embodied in the characters in Coetzee's works. These characters are classified into three types. Type one are those fall in the plight of getting acknowledged like the author; type two are those female who fight for their subjective status under the rule of men; Type three are those being oppressed for a long time and became silent.Coetzee is concerned about their survival status and shows his human care. Chapter four explores Coetzee's marginal strategy in writing. It includes two sections: section one focuses on two aspects. One is Coetzee's deconstruction to historical reality and subversion of colonial statements as well as exposition of monstrous crime conducted by colony, which opens a door for those marginal persons to make statements. Another is liberation from author's authority, that is, to liberate the work and readers from the author's authority and seek for a new approach for writing. Section two discusses Coetzee's personal narrative strategies. His attitude towards history is different from those South-African social realistic writers; hence his writing strategy is also different.Both Colonial rule in colonial era and globalization nowadays led to emergence of large immigrants. What they experienced is not only the change of living environment but also the predicament of getting cultural acknowledgement. Thus, marginal identity and spiritual otherness become a popular problem. In this era with post-colonial culture, this problem has attracted people's unprecedented attention; the Influence their Diaspora Survive and marginal issue on writers'creation become has became a hot cultural topic. Hence it is worthy of our search. However, this kind of study nowadays is not enough. So this thesis focuses on marginality and explores Coetzee's culture identity and the plight he faces in getting the identity acknowledged. Meanwhile, this thesis also analyzes the marginality in the characters portrayed in Coetzee's works and in his writing strategy.